December 20th

~5 Days Before Christmas~

The Sakaki boy smirks as he watched Zarc climbed the stairs to the second floor. Even though it was very unlikely he would be spotted the boy stayed put in his hiding spot, straining his ears to catch the sound of a door clicking shut. When he did he waited a few more extra minutes just to be on the safe side. Finally, the boy slowly eased his way out from behind the couch and crept up to the basement door.

"This is my most brilliant plan yet." The boy thought to himself. The boy was Yugo Sakaki, the third oldest of the Sakaki siblings. With calculated slowness that he wasn't known for, Yugo turned the knob and pulled open the door, taking great care to not let it creak. He descended down into the basement, holding onto the railing and taking each step carefully until he was at the bottom.

Once his bare feet touched the cement floor Yugo's hand reached out and flicked on the light switch. The bulb illumined some of the room, leaving just the corners completely shrouded in darkness. Now normally the basement would freak Yugo out a little, but his excitement to see his present vastly outweighed his fear. It took him a minute, but he finally found the table where Zarc had hidden the presents.

Oh, he tried. He would give him points for efforts, but no one could keep presents hidden from Yugo, the grand master of gift finding! On the table were four individually wrapped presents, each a different Christmas-theme. On the tags Yugo found that his's was the light blue present with white snowflakes on the wrapping paper. He cracked his knuckles dramatically before cautiously opening the lid like it was a booby trap. Once the lid was off Yugo set it to the side and pulled out his gift.

He couldn't believe it.

Zarc had gotten him a Talking Tattletail! Talking Tattletails were Furby-like toys that were like pets. You could feed them, brush them, play with them, and they reacted to other Tattletails. These toys have been the talk of the school since the first commercial came out. Every kid was asking their parents for one. Grinning excitedly, Yugo wonder if he could take it out of its box to play with it, even just for a little while. Yugo was pleased to find that opening the box was as simple as just pulling open the top and taking out the toy.

Now Tattletails came in many different colors and Yugo was more than thrilled to find out that his Tattletail was the very rare, white Tattletail. Yugo heard some kids say that there was only one white Tattletail in the world and he had it! As Yugo was admiring his toy, it suddenly began talking.

"You're in bigggg trouble." The toy spoke. A bit confused and rightfully startled, Yugo set the toy down on the table.

"How did the toy turn on?" Yugo thought to himself. "I thought they didn't come with batteries?" Yugo reached further into the Tattletail box and felt his hand closed around something small, round, and plastic. He pulled it out to see that it was Tattletail's Well Meter. There were 3 colored bars on the compass shaped toy.

The first bar was green with the word - Battery next to it. The bar below it was colored red and had the word - Feed. The last bar was blue and had the word - Groom. The top and bottom bars appeared to still be full, but the middle bar, the Feed bar, was dangerously low. Each Tattletail came with a Well Meter. It showed the needs of your Tattletail so you knew when and how to care for it.

"Give me a treat!"

Yugo jumped at the shouting and it took a few seconds to realize that it was his Tattletail.

"Give me a treat! Give me a treat!" It repeated with no signs of stopping. Yugo grabbed the toy and looked everywhere for a possible way to turn it off, but there was none. The Tattletail's cries echoed off the walls of the basement. He was gonna get caught if he didn't do something soon! Yugo's eyes spotted Tattletail's Well Meter. The Feed bar was completely empty and the words were blinking red.

Thinking fast, Yugo grabbed the toy and its Well Meter before hurrying up the steps. He ran into the kitchen, his child brain going for the one quick snack Zarc always gave them when they were hungry - Crackers. Yugo flung open the cabinets and reached for the blue box of Wellington's Crackers that were on the second shelf. He opened it and shoved one of the crackers into the toy's mouth.

Crumbs went everywhere but the Tattletail ate it up, its robotic mouth moving up and down. Once it had stop moving the endless chatter had ceased. Yugo strained his ears, but all remained quiet. He let out a sigh of relief. No one had woken up.

Yugo let out a yawn and picked up the toy and meter, ready to go back downstairs when he noticed that the Feed bar was now full, but the Groom bar was shrinking fairly quickly.

With little time to spare Yugo climbed up the stairs to the second floor, trying to move as slow but also as quick as possible. When he reached the top, he tip toe down the hall to the bathroom. In the darkness he reached for his brush that he knew he left on the sink and ran it through the back of the Tattletails' fur. Yugo's frantic heartbeat began to ease as he watched the blue bar steadily climb back up. Once it was full, Yugo set his brush back down and briskly made his way back down to the basement.

"Yawwwwn. Me tired." The Tattletail yawned.

"You said it." Yugo thought as he reached the bottom of the basement steps. As he was walking, the light bulb suddenly flickered before going out completely. As Yugo's eyes tried to adjust to the darkness, his Tattletail began shaking. Like...it was cold...or afraid.

"It's dark!" It cried. Yugo calmed himself. The lights were old and this wouldn't be the first time it has done this. A few seconds later, the light flickers back on and the Tattletail stops shaking. Not wanting to be down here any longer, Yugo wrapped the Tattletail with its Well Meter back up, not caring that it was still technically on.

"It would probably shut down on its own." Yugo thought logically. "Or the battery would drain itself out." Yugo pushed his present back into place with the others and rushed up the stairs, his feet freezing. If he had been paying more attention, he would have noticed that the other presents for his brothers weren't exactly in the same spot as before.

Once he had shut the door the home phone on the wall that was in the kitchen began ringing. Still tired, Yugo reached up on his tippy toes and grabbed the phone off its holder. Now Zarc had a rule about them answering the phone if they didn't know the number but honestly, Yugo was too tired to care.

"Hello?" Yugo jerked the phone away from his ear as harsh static filled the other end followed by...some more Ra awful noise that he couldn't describe. Fearful, Yugo hung up the phone not even bothering to make out anything else from the call. Maybe Zarc's rule wasn't as stupid as Yugo first thought.

This night was super strange.

Now a bit wider awake, Yugo was about to go up to his room when he noticed that the house seem a lot colder than usual. Then he heard it.

The wind.

Yugo looked further down the hall to see that the front door was wide open.

Zarc was awoken by Yugo that night, crying about something with their phone. Thinking that it was probably just a nightmare, Zarc was about to tell Yugo to just go back to sleep when he shouted -

"And the front door was open!" Now this jolted Zarc awake.

"It's what?!" He asked, his heart pounding.

"It's open! I saw it." Yugo whimpered through his tears. Wiping the sleep from his eyes Zarc stood up. Grabbing his phone he went to check on his other brothers first.

Yuto was curled up in a ball in his bed, his headphones plug into his phone that was currently playing rain sounds. Like Zarc, he had trouble sleeping since the accident, but instead of taking medication Yuto found more comfort in therapeutic rain noises.

Yuri was also still asleep in his room, his hands folded peacefully on his chest as he slept on his back. On a table next to Yuri's desk his pet corn snake, Fangs stirred. He eyed the two intruders for a moment before curling back onto his rock. Zarc has no idea why their parents allowed Yuri to keep a snake in the house, but he did his research and corn snakes were non-venomous, had a docile nature, and were easy to take care of so he let it be.

In Yuya's room, Yuya was mumbling softly in his sleep, his arms tightly wound around a stuffed Hip Hippo toy. Seeing that all the boys were okay, Zarc checked the rest of the second floor. There was no intruder. Zarc told Yugo to stay on the second floor unless he called for him. Yugo nods, gripping the banister of the railing tightly.

Zarc scope out the hallway and kitchen, but found nothing. He could see that the front door was indeed open, just halfway now. The wind was howling which blew some of the snow from the porch inside. Zarc stuck his head out, but it had been snowing heavily for the past couple of hours so any footprints were lost. He shuts the door and locks it, running a hand through his hair.

It didn't look like someone had force their way in. Did he forget to lock the door before going to bed? He checked the rest of the house, looking through every nook and cranny he could find. He even looked through all the closets, cabinets, and the basement to make sure that was no place anyone could hide. The last thing Zarc checked was the sliding door that went out to their wooden patio and backyard.

Zarc wiped the fog from the window and flicked on the porch light. He peered out, but saw nothing but their snow filled yard. He gave the door a tug. It was still firmly lock.

"Maybe I didn't shut the door all the way when I came in and the wind blew it open. Or at least, if someone did try to break in, they decided not too and left. Regardless, I should change those locks now." Zarc thought to himself as he went back up the stairs. Yugo was still where he had left him.

"D-did you find them?"

"No. I think the wind just blew the door open is all. Nothing to worry about, Yugo." Zarc answered. But Yugo continued to stare up at Zarc, eyes wide with fear and insecurity. "Yugo, I promise you. I've checked everywhere. There's nobody here but us."

"B-but the p-phone..and the door! I-I..." Yugo was unable to finish his sentence, his tears coming down full force now. Zarc wasn't sure what to do. He never had to deal with a crying child before! Then he remembered something Ray told him.

"Zarc, I need you to understand that you're not just a guardian to these boys. They're going to look up to you not just for physical support, but emotional and spiritual as well. This world can be a cruel and ruthless place at times and through those times, especially now, they need someone they know they can depend on. I know you didn't ask for this, but truthfully you are the only one these boys can lean against now."

Zarc dug deep into his own childhood memories, remembering exactly what Yusho and Yoko did for him when he was scared or didn't want to sleep at night.

"Hey, it's okay, b-buddy. You...you can sleep in my room for the night." Relief swamp through Zarc as Yugo's tense shoulders relaxed and he wiped away his tears with his arm.

"O-okay." He sniffed. Yugo followed Zarc to his room where he immediately climbs onto the king size bed and dives under the sheets, sighing into the pillow. Feeling drowsy himself, Zarc also got back into bed and laid down. Although they were sleeping on opposite sides of the large bed, Zarc could still sense Yugo, his breathing evening out into sleep quite quickly.

It took awhile for Zarc to get use to the feeling, after all, he never had to share his bed before. But eventually he too fell asleep.